


Paris in the Spring

by ami_ven



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: Community: writerverse, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paris was just as he remembered it, only better somehow.  Freer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paris in the Spring

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "writerverse" prompt "twenty years later"

Paris was just as he remembered it, only better somehow. Freer.

The address he was looking for turned out to be a tiny café on a tinier side street, its door propped open to the afternoon breeze.

He knocked on the doorframe. “Hello?”

“Colonel Hogan!” It had been twenty years, but he’d have recognized that voice anywhere.

“It’s general now, LeBeau,” he said, grinning. “But I’m retired.”

The Frenchman smiled back, reaching out to shake his hand warmly. “You will always be ‘colonel’ to me.”

“Me, too, sir,” said Newkirk, joining them from the kitchen, still wiping his hands with a towel. “I got in yesterday, thought I’d lend Louie a hand.”

“He is a culinary menace!” LeBeau said, but he was still smiling. “I am preparing a feast, colonel, just you wait.”

“Hey, what smells so good?” asked a new voice. They all turned to see Carter standing in the café doorway, Kinch just behind him.

“I found him at the airport,” said Kinch. “Seems nobody gave him any directions.”

LeBeau frowned. “He was just here six months ago, when I bought this place!”

“Yeah,” said Carter. “But six months is a long time.”

Hogan shook his head, grinning. Amazingly, they were still friends. Time and distance had reduced their correspondence to letters at Christmas, but they had never completely lost touch. And the rare times they managed to get any number of them together, it was as if they’d never been apart.

“Hello?” asked another voice. “Is anyone here?”

Klink and Schultz stood in the open doorway. “Hogan,” said their former commandant, hesitantly.

“Klink,” he replied.

He hadn’t spoken to Klink since the end of the war, when the prisoners had been returned home. Everything they’d done, on both sides, had come out during the trials at Nuremburg. Hogan himself had testified to the escapes he’d facilitated and the information he’d passed along to the Allies. They’d made Klink look like a fool, and everyone had known it.

For a long moment, the two men stared at each other. Then, Klink held out his hand. “Thank you,” he said.

Hogan frowned. “For what, colonel?”

Klink shook his head. “It’s just Wilhelm, now.” He took a deep breath. “They lied to us, Hogan. The camps, the _concentration_ camps— If you thought I’d be angry for being made a fool… well, I’d rather be a fool than a Nazi.”

“You’re a better man than we thought you were,” said Hogan, and shook Klink’s hand firmly. 

“Hey, Schultz,” said Carter. “Want to see some pictures of my kid?”

The former sergeant beamed. “And I will show you some of my grandchildren,” he replied.

Hogan smiled. “Can I buy you a drink, Wilhelm?” he asked.

Klink smiled back. “If you let me buy the second, Robert.”

THE END


End file.
